Fire Country (29 page)

“The hut walls were thin enough to hear everything if I put my ear up to it,” Lye says. “They knew everything. The location of Wildetown, the approximate number of Wildes, the most direct route to get there. It didn’t take them long to decide what to do.”

“Yeah, hunt us down and kill or capture every last one of us,” Crya says, her words clipped and laced with anger.”

Lye nods. “They were going to organize the Hunters the next day, take as many men as they could spare.”

I count backwards in my head. “But then…shouldn’t they already be here?”

Lye sits down, as if her legs won’t be able to keep her up as she tells the next part of her story. “I was about to leave the village, to turn a five-day trek across the desert into two days to hopefully warn everyone before it was too late.”

“What the scorch happened?” Skye asks.

“The Killers attacked.”

~~~

The Killers bought us some time. According to Lye, they came by night, dark shadows with one thing on their mind: satisfy their namesake; k
ill. Lye had just slipped out of the northern edge of the village, probably through the same gap I escaped from, when the alarm sounded. She thought it was for her, so she ran hard, dove behind the biggest dune she could find.

She heard
blood-curdling screams and hair-raising cries, and when she peeked out, the village was in turmoil. The shadows had broken through and were biting, slashing, clawing at anyone in sight. They killed many Heaters ’fore the Hunters were able to maim enough of the beasts to drive the rest away.

Lye waited until it was over, crept back in. No one noticed her. They were too busy carrying the injured to MedMa, dragging the dead to the cente
r of the village where they’d be burned at dawn. Sixty four were killed, including forty six Hunters. In a village as small as the Heaters’, losses like that are catastrophic.

When Lye finishes her story about the Killer attack, I let out a deep sigh. Profound sadness rests upon me like a dark cloud. So many innocents killed. However, I realize it’s not only a sigh of sad
ness, it’s a sigh of relief at both having not been there when the Killers attacked and at being bailed out. The Heaters won’t come for us, not after being decimated like that. Will they?

“The Hunters are on their way,” Lye says, and I gasp.

“What? But they’ve just been slaughtered by the Killers. How can they…?” My voice is high and quivery and draws stares from everyone.

“Your father’s hatred for us runs deep,” Wilde says. “The Killers may have killed many of his people once, but we take girls every six
full moons. And not just girls,
Bearers
. Those who have the ability to add to the population. Without Bearers, the Heaters will wither away to nothing, like a carcass picked clean by scavengers. He’s coming to take us back.”

“They left three days ago,” Lye says. “I managed to get around them as they slept and
arrive here ahead of them. We might have two days, but it could be less. They were running hard.”

It’s all my fault. I led them right to us. I hid the truth of my stupidity fro
m the very people who coulda done something about it. My heart’s as hard as stone, cracking and crumbling away. “What do we do?” I ask.

Wilde meets each pair of eyes in the tent. “We fight,” she says.

F
ighting against friends, where the victor extends a hand to help the loser up at the end, is one thing. Fighting to the death is another.

But that’s what we’ll do. Not just for o
ur freedom from the oppressive Laws that my father stands for, but for each other, for ourselves. For those we’ve lost: for me, Circ and my mother.

To the death.

With his typical arrogance, my father’ll expect to catch us by surprise. That’s our advantage. So we’ll play into it, pretend to be caught unawares, with our britches down so to speak. Really we’ll be ready, with tricks a-plenty up our sleeves.

By Lye’s estimation, he only brought
fifty Hunters with him, less’n half our numbers. Again, his arrogance playing right into our hands. Either he doesn’t realize how many we have, or he thinks he’ll crush us like a powder moth under his treads.

Our turf. Ours. We’ll let him come to us.

We expect the Hunters to appear at dawn over the horizon, running at full tilt, heavily armored and equipped. Instead, they come at dusk.

After a long day of preparation, we’ve just sat down to eat, when the scouts run into the camp, preceded only by their shouts. “They’re here!” they yell. “The Hunters are here!” A shiver passes through me. The night air is warm.

Silence. First everyone stares at the scouts, who are panting, their elbows on their knees, fear in their eyes. If we look at them long enough maybe they’ll disappear like a bad dream. Eventually though, reality sets in. This is happening. All heads turn to Wilde, who stands, her unfinished meal in her hands. “Prepare for war,” she says.

Chaos ensues and I
find myself walking aimlessly ’round the camp, my legs like lead, my head in the clouds. This can’t be happening. So soon after escaping him, my father has hunted me down to bring me back. And not only me—everyone. My fault. Mine alone.

Skye grabs my hand, but I don’t respond. “Siena!” she screams, right in my face. I say n
othing. She clamps her fingers ’round my cheeks, squeezes, forces me to look into her eyes. My sister’s eyes, the same but different. “Do you see the fear?” she asks.

I see only fire. I
shake my head.

“Follow me,” she says.

She leads me to one of the elevated caves, the one I shoulda gone to as soon as the command was given, with the other archers. I may not be a sharpshooter yet, but Wilde thought I’d be more effective here’n on the ground. The rest of the markswomen already have their satchels of pointers strapped to their backs. Skye helps me with mine.

“I can’t do—” I start to say.

“Yes. You can,” Skye says. “Do it for Circ.”

A cheap shot, but just what I need. If it wasn’t for my father Circ wouldn’t be dead. He sent hi
m on that mission on purpose, ’cause it was dangerous. ’Cause of me. I won’t let him take more of my friends. I won’t.

I nod
. Skye leaves, gone to join t’other warriors.

~~~

My heart pounds. Sweat pools in the small of my back. My muscles ache from a month of training, but feel stronger’n ever. Revenge burns in my chest.

From my elevated vantage point I can se
e the entire camp. Skye and t’other warriors sit ’round the still-burning fire, eating and joking and carrying on as if nothing is different. An act for the Hunters.

My eyes dart
to the canyon entrance, which dances with flickers from the fire. Shadows play on the walls, making me tense up. I relax when I realize no one’s there.
Breathe
, I think, forcing the air in and out of my lungs.

Beside me, a dozen other archers wait as I do.

A Hunter creeps through the entrance, bow drawn, pointer strung. Aimed at the warriors ’round the fire. Aimed at Skye, who, along with t’others, pretends not to see the intruder. I want to let my pointer fly, but when I glance at our lead archer, she don’t give the signal. As planned, we hafta wait till more Hunters are in sight. Skye could be dead by then. My jaw clenches so tightly it hurts.

Six more Hunters flank the first,
pointers nocked and at the ready. An almost imperceptible shake of the head from our leader. Not time.

The first Hunter
says in a booming voice, “By order of the Greynotes, you are our prisoners!”

Skye and t’
others jump up, as if they’re caught unawares. They raise their hands above their heads, as if to say, “No threat here!”

“Where are the others?” the Hunter says.

Brione answers. “In the tents, sleepin’. We’re early risers ’ere.”

Even in the darkening night, I can see the Hunter’s smile, lit up by the firelight. An easy victory. He’ll be rewarded by my father. He whistles, high and loud. A signal. All clear. Clean up time.

Dozens of Hunters pour into the canyon, wielding spears and blades and bows. I’m surprised to see Hawk stride in with them. He almost looks uncomfortable, his face twisted, like he’s got a prickler stuck up his bum. A far cry from the confident new Hunter I saw ’fore.

Then
he
comes. At the back of the pack, protected by five guards. My father, hate-faced and narrow-eyed. After the Killer attack, it’ll be a much needed victory for him. At least that’s what he’s thinking, what he’s telling himself. We’re thinking something else.

Our lead archer gives the signal.

Magnificently coordinated, the other lead archers tucked in the cave-pocked canyon walls give the signal, too, and suddenly the air is full of pointers. Hunters fall, pierced and bleeding. Other Hunters, including Hawk, drop to the ground, on their bellies or to one knee, to avoid the pointers flying overhead. “Trap!” one of the Hunters yells, as if someone really needs to point it out.

My
pointer is still aimed and I realize I haven’t shot it. I’ve just been watching in morbid fascination as my Wilde sisters do the durty work for me. Sliding my hands, I try to find a target. A pointer zips past, narrowly missing my shoulder and clattering off the stone wall. A group of Hunter archers have spotted us and are shooting into the cave mouth. A girl beside me cries out as she’s hit. She slumps over and I can’t take my eyes off her. Without checking, I know. She was dead ’fore she hit the ground. Pointer through the heart. There’s blood. So much blood. I can’t…I can’t…my chest is tight and my throat’s closing and I can’t do this, not any of it.

“Targ
et the archers,” the lead cries, and I close my eyes, try to get a grip on myself. Sky’s down there. I hafta help her the best I can from up here.

I swivel back, locate an archer, release
a pointer.
Twang!
A misfire; my pointer tumbles end over end like an injured bird, dropping harmlessly in front of the archers. A Skye-worthy mouthful of curses tumbles from between my lips as I grab another pointer.

One of my Wilde sisters takes out one of the archers. Three more
pointers sail through the cave entrance, two connecting. Not flesh wounds. Death wounds. My sisters are dying ’round me.

I aim and fire. Too high. My muscles are too tense, I can’t get a rhythm like I can on the shooting range when there’s no one trying to kill me and my friends.
When the targets are just targets and not people, not shooting back at you.

Don’t give up.

Nock another pointer, shoot again—an archer cries out in pain. A leg shot. Another well placed pointer could finish him off.

’F
ore I can shoot again, however, Skye is there, swinging her blade like a scythe, cutting down the surprised archers ’fore they have a chance to run. In training she’s magnificent, full of speed and grace while kicking the blaze out of someone. She’s every bit as magnificent now, but her every move is surrounded by darkness and violence, soaked in blood and anguished cries. ’Fore any of the archers have a chance to throw down their bows and draw the blades at their belts, they’re all dead.

There’
re as many Wilde warriors as Hunters in the Canyon now, fighting hand to hand. An ill-aimed pointer could kill our own, so we lay down our bows, watch the action, safely removed from the carnage. Although we’re winning, it’s not without significant loss. I cringe as a well-muscled Hunter gut-slashes a Wilde, discarding her in a bloody heap.

Something snaps in me, like ’
fore. Like when the Killers attacked the Hunters. Like when the Glassies attacked the village. A force beyond my own takes over, draws my knife, pushes me outta the cave. “Where are you going?” the lead archer shouts.

I shrug and climb down, my knife clamped firmly between my teeth.

~~~

The world swarms, red and black and beyond real. From up above, away from it all, shooting
a pointer, trying to kill, felt so easy, a simple act of releasing the tension in a bowstring. Down here, in the thick, to take a life is to lose your soul.

And yet Skye seems to relish it, slashing, hacking, taking a skin-splitting, blood-spilling Hunter’s blade across her arm, growling like an animal, half-laughing
as if she enjoys the pain, stabbing back, killing another.

Two warriors are struck down by
a fearfully large Hunter. I hafta help them ’fore the Hunters finish them off. Moved by the surge of hot blood in my veins, I charge the brute, jam my knife into his back, so close to the dead I can taste it on my tongue. Blood spills over my hand and arm, but he doesn’t go down, doesn’t die like he’s s’posed to. He whirls on me, nearly wrenching my shoulder out of its socket as I hang onto the knife, which is still stuck in his back. Bucking like a cornered tug bull, he wrangles me off, slings me to the ground. Stomps on my chest with a sledgehammer boot. Every last bit of air is expelled from my lungs as stars flash across my vision. His blade glints as it catches the shimmering glow of the fire. A drop of sweat drips from his chin onto my cheek.

This is what I deserve for bringing this scorch upon the Wildes. This is why the unseen force moved me to leave the safety of the cave. To die. To die for my mistakes. His blade flashes down.

The ring of metal on metal shrills in my ear as another blade crosses the Hunter’s. Surprised, he’s thrown back. Skye stands over me.

“It’s burnin’ over,” she growls. “Retreat while you have the chance.”

Through her legs I see the ogre-like Hunter scan the area ’round him, and then, sensing the truth of Sky’s words, he lowers his head and runs.

I gasp, suck at the air, come up empty. Fire licks at my chest, splinter
s of glass pierce my skin. Not really, but that’s how it feels.

“Breathe, Sie,” Skye says, kneeling over me. I close my eyes, disappear to a place where Hunters and Wildes don’t exist.